One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Monday, May 05, 2014

The Passenger: A Space: 1999 Fan Film

As
a long-time admirer of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s 1970s epic, Space:
1999, I was intrigued when I heard that a new fan film based on the
series -- called The Passenger -- had been produced by some very dedicated and
intrepid filmmakers.

I
wondered what the film’s approach would be and how on Earth (or the moon…) the
series’ expansive sets and mystery-based narratives could be effectively recreated,
especially on an extremely low budget.

Well,
I had the pleasure of watching a review copy of the fan film last week, and I
suppose what surprised and thrilled me most about the new thirty-five minute film is that
filmmakers David Connellan and Doug MacAulay so dramatically captured the
spirit or essence of the series in its original (Year One) format.

By
this I mean that the film’s creators don’t worry so much about pacing as they do the
emotional content and the impact of their screenplay’s “big” ideas.

Now,
there are plenty of critics and viewers who have found this very approach
wanting in the nearly forty years since Space: 1999’s premiere.

This
aesthetic has been called, among other things, “ponderous.”

But
if you ask me, “ponderous” is sort of the heart of Space: 1999’s
story-telling brand.

The
series is all about the notion that man goes out into space largely unprepared
for the experience, and must reckon in that domain not with aliens who want to be his
brothers, but with mind-blowing mysteries about existence, life and death, and man’s
destiny in the universe.

Frankly, I know of no
other sci-fi series that so directly and consistently tackles this subject. This is one key reason I admire the series so resolutely.

In
short, Space: 1999 has always asked the big questions about mankind
and his nature. Are we just finite little beings unable to grasp the big
picture? Or do our actions and connections
to one another reflect something significant...on even a cosmic scale?

The
Passenger
focuses intently on this arena of metaphysics, and plays as all the more
intriguing and worthwhile for that very cerebral focus.

Specifically, The Passenger involves one of Alpha's pilots, Jack Crawford
(David Connellan), who -- in the
aftermath of the breakaway event that hurls the moon out of Earth’s orbit --
faces a life or death epiphany in his Eagle space craft, even as his pregnant
wife, Sue (Sarah Jean-Begin), eagerly awaits his return to Moonbase Alpha.

As
he faces his own imminent demise, Crawford undertakes a strange and heart-breaking journey
into the future, to see what becomes of the family he leaves behind.

Or perhaps the odyssey is all in his
mind…the last musings of a dying man.

Pulling
in (but not abusing…) characters, concepts and designs from beloved series episodes
such as “Alpha Child,” “Collision Course” and “Another Time, Another Place,” The
Passenger successfully recreates the unusual alchemy of many Space:1999 episodes...and this could not have been an easy task because the exact ingredients in that formula are variable; hit and miss.

But
like many episodes of Year One, The Passenger commences in a kind of blaze of
technical jargon about Eagle flights, trajectories, and so forth, and then -- once it has you
in its orbit -- the short film begins to spin further and further out, focusing on the phantasms of
that dying pilot.

These phantasms take Crawford
to the edge of space, back to Alpha, and beyond.

The
idea, ultimately, is that Jack travels along with the Alphans on their journey as a kind of
seldom-seen but often "felt" ghost…and in a way, that’s the perfect description of a human “memory”
isn’t it?

Our memories travel with us, and sometimes feel so real...but they are just, in the end, ghosts on the periphery.

But the point here is that there are so many episodes of Space: 1999 that work exactly like this.

Various entries begin as a “concrete” story of people working in a hazardous
environment, and then something happens which opens up EVERYTHING, and
suddenly viewers are contemplating questions of fate, synchronicity, the
meaning of life, and, yes, the existence of a “cosmic intelligence” (or what
others might call “God.”)

This is precisely the atmosphere and tone that The Passenger achieves, and the film works as a drama because of the emotional truth that Jack countenances. He trades one future -- of connection with his son and wife -- for another.

In that other future, he is dead and gone, physically, but his impact continues nonetheless. His family -- his very heart and soul -- reaches out into chapters of future history as yet unwritten.

I have often wondered if this is what the human death experience could be: a tour of the future in which you are physically absent from your loved ones, but in which your choices -- and your progeny -- go on.

When we die, and our lives flash before our eyes, does the future flash before them as well?

The
Passenger
nails this formula, and in the process captures the eerie, often melancholy vibe of Space: 1999's first year. The film goes from being a story about a pilot struggling for a
survival to the story of a pilot seeing (or imagining) his very place in the
order of things.

I should stress again, I suppose, that this is a fan film, and that means that it had no budget to speak of. The co-directors had to recreate the whole high-tech world of Space:1999 from scratch. They do a creditable job with effects sets and costumes, but in some moments -- such as the vistas of an alien world -- they surpass even that description.

Finally, I would say in regards to The Passenger thatthe quality of the special effects becomes less important, in the final analysis, than the connection that the filmmaker's forge with their primary characters.

The emotional impact of Jack's metaphysical journey ultimately makes the success or failure of certain special effects shots secondary considerations.

Based
on this short fan film -- one created with fidelity, passion, and intellectual curiosity
-- I would like to see the makers of The Passenger adapt this style of
storytelling to an original project next.

Until they undertake that task, fans of Space: 1999 will want to check out
this fan effort because it demonstrates both resourcefulness and a deep understanding of the cerebral underpinnings of the cult-TV series.

I am a huge fan of Space: 1999 Y1, and one of the reasons I never managed to like Y2 was the big tonal shift between seasons. (The changes to the characters and the noticeable drop in production values dind't help either).

It's good to know that The Passenger sticks to tone and atmosphere of Y1.

Awesome! I would love to see this. I've always thought it would be cool to do some fan films from the perspective of what was happening in other parts of Alpha during the regular episodes. You could build a story with a different set of characters and do it in a way where you would insert a small scene here or there from the real episode for context. The story would be separate yet refer to the events of the real episode which would be going on in the "background."

About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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